First Migrants

Peter Bellwood is Professor of Archaeology at the Australian National University. A renowned authority in a fi eld driven by contesting paradigms, his vast experience and detailed empirical research have informed his widely-translated publications, especially covering South East Asia and the Pacifi c. Recent key works include The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, Volume 1: Prehistory (2013), co-edited with Immanuel Ness, First Farmers (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005), Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago (second edition 1997, reprinted 2007), and Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis (2002), co-edited with Colin Renfrew. His research integrates a range of techniques from archaeology, linguistics, and human biology, and he is currently engaged in archaeological research in Vietnam and the Philippines.

“In sum, First Migrantsis a commendable effort to synthesize a growing body of literature on the subject and will serve as a useful and much needed text for courses on the subject. For those generally unfamiliar with different parts of the world and why people moved to and fro, Bellwood has offered an attractive resource and one which should prove useful in that regard for years to come.”  (American Antiquity, 1 July 2014)“This is a significant contribution to our understanding of world archaeology.”  (Antiquity, 1 June 2014)

• List of Figures ixPreface xivA Note on Dating Terminology xviAcknowledgements xvii1 The Relevance and Reality of Ancient Migration 1Migration in Prehistoric Times 4Hypothesizing About Prehistoric Migrations 6Migrations in History and Ethnography 8The Helvetii 8Ancient China 9Medieval Iceland 10The Nuer of Sudan 10The Iban of Sarawak 12Relevance for Prehistoric Migration? 132 Making Inferences About Prehistoric Migration 17Changes in Time and Space – Genes, Languages, Cultures 18Human Biology, Genetics, and Migration 19Demic Diffusion 21Language Families and the Study of Migration in Prehistory 22Language Family Spread: Lessons from Recent History 26Language Family Spread: Lessons from Anthropology 28Dating the Spreads of Language Families 29Cultures in Archaeology – Do They Equate with Linguistic and Biological Populations? 30Archaeology and the Study of Migration in Prehistory 32One End of the Spectrum – Intensive Culture Change without Significant Migration 32The Other End of the Spectrum – Intensive Cultural Change with Significant Migration 333 Migrating Hominins and the Rise of Our Own Species 36Behavioral Characteristics and Origins of Early Hominins in Africa 38First Hominin Migration(s) – Out of Africa 1 41Unfolding Species in Time and Space 46Java, Flores, and Crossing the Sea 48Out of Africa 2? 50Out of Africa 3? The Origins of H. sapiens 52The Recognition of Modern Humans in Biology and Archaeology 54The Expansion of Modern Humans Across the African and Eurasian Continents, 130,000–45,000 Years Ago 58Africa 58The Levant and Southern Asia 60Northern and Western Eurasia 63The Fate of the Neanderthals 66Explanations? 674 Beyond Eurasia: The Pioneers of Unpeopled Lands – Wallacea and Beyond, Australia, The Americas 71Crossing the Sea Beyond Sundaland 72How Many Settlers? 74The First Australo-Melanesians 76The Archaeology of Island Colonization – Wallacea, Melanesia, Australia 77Heading North and Offshore Again – Japan 81The Americas 83Getting to Beringia 84Circumventing the Ice 88The Rapid Unfolding of American Colonization 905 Hunter-Gatherer Migrations in a Warming Postglacial World 96Postglacial Recolonizations in Northern Eurasia 97After the First Americans: Further Migrations Across Bering Strait 101Na-Dene and Yeniseian 101The Apachean Migration 104The Holocene Colonizations of Arctic Coastal North America 105The Thule Migration and the Inuit 107The Early Holocene Colonization of a Green Sahara 109Continental Shelves and Their Significance for Human Migration 112Holocene Australia – Pama-Nyungan Migration? 113Linguistic Prehistory during the Australian Holocene 117Who Were the Ancestral Pama-Nyungans? 1196 The First Farmers and Their Offspring 123Where and When Did Food Production Begin? 124Why Did Food Production Develop in Some Places, but Not Others? 127Why Was Domesticated Food Production Relatively Slow to Develop? 128Food Production and Population Expansion 129The Neolithic 133Food Production as the Driving Force of Early Agriculturalist Migration 1357 The Fertile Crescent Food Production Complex 140Agricultural Origins in the Fertile Crescent 141Neolithic and Chalcolithic Expansion Beyond the Fertile Crescent 147Anatolia and Southeastern Europe 147Neolithic Migration Beyond Greece and the Balkans 149The Steppes and Central Asia 151Iran, Pakistan, and South Asia Beyond the Indus 153Linguistic History and the Spread of the Fertile Crescent Food Production Complex 157Perspectives from Indo-European 157The Possible Significance of the Turkic and Yeniseian Languages in Central Asia 163West Eurasian Genetic and Population History in the Holocene 165Peninsular Indian Archaeology and Dravidian Linguistic History 168The Spread of the Fertile Crescent Food-Producing Economy into North Africa 169The Fertile Crescent Food Production Complex and Its Impact on Holocene Prehistory in Western Eurasia 1728 The East Asian and Western Pacific Food Production Complexes 178Agricultural Origins in the Yellow and Yangzi Basins of East Asia 178Migrations from the Yellow River Basin 181Migrations from the Yangzi Basin – Mainland Southeast Asia 182Early Rice and the Linguistic Record 187Genetics, Human Biology, and the East Asian Mainland during the Holocene 189Island Southeast Asia and Oceania 191The Colonization of Oceania 194The History of the Austronesian Language Family 197Biological Anthropology and the Austronesians 201The East Asian and Western Pacific Food Production Complexes and Their Impacts on Holocene Prehistory 2049 The African and American Food Production Complexes 210Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa 211West Africa and the Niger-Congo-Speaking Populations 213The African Food Production Complex in Perspective 218Holocene Migrations in the Americas 219The Central Andes 221Amazonia 224The Caribbean Islands 228Mesoamerica 229Northern Mesoamerica, the Southwestern United States, and the Uto-Aztecans 230The Eastern Woodlands 234The American Food Production Complexes and Their Impacts on Holocene Prehistory 23810 The Role of Migration in the History of Humanity 243References 249Index 299